INTRODUCTION Woman is the female gender of a human being. Females in cultures around the world have had the longest tradition of being the oppressed. In mankind's history, various gender roles have...

INTRODUCTION
Woman is the female gender of a human being. Females in cultures around the world have had the longest tradition of being the oppressed. In mankind's history, various gender roles have been developed that have produced gender inequality of the woman, restricting her resources and activities. Political teachings have also led to the exploitation of women, in addition to gender roles. In the 20th century, however, women were on the rise, leaving their traditional positions as homemakers and pursuing numerous other professions and attaining higher educational levels. Besides being stereotyped as a homemaker, women have endured other difficulties such as becoming victims of abuse in their own homes and communities, primarily conducted by men.
The philosophy of feminism took root in order to combat the oppressions, giving rise to numerous movements around the world in order to achieve gender equality. This paper will focus on studying a contemporary problem faced by women worldwide, and particularly in Australia, is the lack of women in powerful positions.
FINDINGS
Australia has been witnessing a legacy of ho
ific abuse against women. The indigenous women had been forced to go through ho
ific abuse during the country's colonial invasion. They had been subjected to rape, beating and even killing. Even with the colonials who invaded the land, the female to male ratio was extremely small. After those years though, Australian culture has changed and focused more on empowering women than any other country. The government also allowed women to serve as women soldiers or as labour-power during the Second World War.
Although women over the years have resolved a number of issues that they face, the problem of being in a position of power is still prevalent. Working in a place of influence means serving in top-level management roles in different sectors and industries or becoming a part of the country's political front. There are a variety of causes that cause women to lose control, but the most common ones can be identified as bullying women, gender inequality, unwillingness to work long hours because of extra responsibilities, balancing between family obligations and work life, etc. Other factors may include a lack of family support and a lack of male boss mentoring, lack of transparency regarding the career path and monetary incentives (Aranda & Je
ard, 2019).
Besides that, there are other contributing factors that discourage women from first joining other areas, such as politics, architecture, medical lines, and law. These fields are dominated overwhelmingly by men, and even before they reach these fields the women face discrimination. Women have a challenge, let alone being in a position of influence in organisations employed in these sectors, pursuing these professions. It's rarely seen that a woman leads a country or a hospital.
Australia, too, suffers from this problem despite being gender inclusive and having a tradition of empowering women. A research in Australia has revealed that the idea of women not being great leaders is embedded in Australia's mindsets and culture. Jill Shephard, an Australian National University political professor, conducted a survey of 2,200 voters to classify the characteristics that voters are looking for in their representatives. The survey found that conservative male voters were even less likely than male peers to vote for a female candidate even though they possessed all of the requisite characteristics or were even better.
As per the figures, women occupy just 28 percent of the total seats in the House of Representatives, that is, 41 out of 45 seats. Women hold 38 per cent of seats in the senate, making it 29 out of 76. Women in Queensland Parliament comprise 32 per cent (30 out of 93) of the seats. The study showed that both major minor parties were unwilling to include women in the lead or let them represent elections as well.
Specifically, in Queensland women are a distinct minority at all levels of politics. The proportion of women in local councils and in the state and federal governments in that state is about 30%. Sexism isn't the reason why more men are in strong positions on the Sunshine Coast, according to Sandy Bolton, who is one of the 30 women elected in Queensland Parliament. Whereas other reasons have been contributing to the low number of women. Some of these factors are linked to the long working hours, negative effects on the women's families and public reactions. Public responses include dissonance from the government. The issue of cyber bullying is so bad in today’s time that it extends to family members too (Jacques, 2018).
It indicates that even though the members of the council and people working in the parliament are not sexist and genuinely favour women in positions of authority, it is the electorate that influence the lack of women in those roles. People select a male candidate, since they assume that only a male leader will take them on a good path. It was also noted, however, that the coming generations are more accepting and fond of women leaders because there is a small rise in women in government.
There are much worse reasons associated with the lack of women in such roles when it comes to being in a powerful role in a corporation or a business-related company.
Gillian Triggs, the former chairman of the Australian Human Rights Commissions, recently reported that women's rights has declined since the beginning of the decade, with an increasing number of reports of sexual abuse at work. Professor Triggs claims women's equality in the country has declined at a high pace over the last 6 to 8 years. According to the World Economic Forum, while Australia's women are number one in terms of education, the nation has regressed to 46th place and later returned to the 30s in terms of economic empowerment and political engagement. This was also found that in the past 6 to 8 years, the World Economic Forum's annual global gender disparity index has seen Australia deteriorate from its initial world ranking. Australia's gender disparity ranking has increased dramatically over the past 10 years as Australia ranked 23rd in 2010, 25th in 2012 and 35th in the world in 2017, and by 2020 Australia fell to 44th out of 153 countries (WER, 2020).
In 2019, Australia ranked 49th worldwide in terms of economic participation and opportunity ranking, declining dramatically compared to the past decade as it fell down every few years. All this as Australia claims to be number one in education achievement (Catalano, 2018).
It is a distu
ing fact that, despite being number one in the achievement of education when it comes to comparing the amount of education between men and women, there is no real use of education being made. The capacity of women to hold power roles has been restricted by racism and gender inequality among colleagues as well as the general public. Also, at workplaces in organisations, women are suffering from a variety of issues such as being unable to spend time due to family responsibilities, having to cope with male bosses 'discrimination, trying to keep up with anything, etc. There are other problems women face in Australia, such as gender pay gap. The gender pay gap refers to the difference in pay between men and women. Australia has a provision requiring businesses to pay women fair wages, as they do to men. In 2018, Australia's gender full-time wage disparity was estimated to be 14.6 per cent, meaning women earned an average of $244.80 less than men a week. Western Australia has been reported with the highest pay gap of 22.4 percent per State and te
itory.
It was estimated that the financial and insurance services industry created the highest pay gap of about 26.6 per cent (Government XXXXXXXXXXOnce investigated it was found that the unexplained wage difference was not related to schooling, experience or job field. It leaves the doors open, due to sexism and other disparities between men and women, to the disparity remaining. Studies also found that wage differences among high-paid workers were higher compared to the lower-paid workers (Miller, 2005).
Occupational segregation issues also exist which separate occupations based on a person's gender. It was found that in a variety of industries around the world, women accounted for less than 30 per cent. The information media and telecommunications had 37.6 percent female employees, industrial trading had 30.1 percent, manufacturing only had 27.3 percent female workers and so on (Government, 2020).
It has also been found that a lot of women in Australia got less superannuation amounts than men. The average pay-out for a man in Australia for the year XXXXXXXXXXwas $270,710, while for women it was $157,050 (AHRC, XXXXXXXXXXThat concludes that after retirement, the average Australian woman receives far less than the men do. This further adds to financial difficulties faced by women during their retirement time, resulting in greater likeliness of poverty among women in old age compared to men.
In 2018, it was estimated that one in every two women was sexually harassed and one in every three women in Australia was sexually assaulted and abused (AHRC, XXXXXXXXXXTheir homes are also prone to domestic abuse.
CONCLUSIONS
Women have experienced suffering in human history. Despite developmental efforts and feminist campaigns, women experience gender inequality, crime, inequalities, wage and health inequity, unhealthy workplaces, workplace harassment, stereotypes, and so forth. In terms of women's economic and political advancement, even a nation like Australia which is number one in women's education attainment is worsening. They earn less pay, less pension though at the same time they face discrimination at work and at home. Women have been given the responsibility of taking care of children and families automatically for a very long time, when husbands go out to work. Despite efforts, this cycle of thought still prevails in every society around the world which hinders women's growth in prominent sectors.
It is vitally important to have women in strong political roles to improve gender conditions. Unless strict steps are taken against men who control women with shrewd behaviour, however, that will not be possible.
REFERENCES:
Aranda, A. S. D., & Je
ard, M. A XXXXXXXXXXA Comparison Between Australia and Chile of Factors Facing Women Engineers and ICT Professionals in Their Careers. In Gender Gaps and the Social Inclusion Movement in ICT (pp XXXXXXXXXXIGI Global.
Catalano, M XXXXXXXXXXFact check: Has equality for Australian women relative to the world fallen in the last six or eight years?. Retrieved on 2nd April 2020. From https:
www.abc.net.au/news/ XXXXXXXXXX/fact-check-global-gender-gap/ XXXXXXXXXX
AHRC XXXXXXXXXXFace the facts: Gender Equality 2018 | Australian Human Rights Commission. Retrieved on 2nd April 2020. From https:
www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/education/face-facts-gender-equality-2018
Government, A XXXXXXXXXXAustralia's Gender Pay Gap Statistics | WGEA. Retrieved